


forever and a day

by theninthmember



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Pirate AU, READ: NOT A LITERAL DOG, blatant mispronunciation of made up words, rapunzel au kinda?? not intentional, the Light is sentient but like. a weird dog
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2020-03-26 16:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19009831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theninthmember/pseuds/theninthmember
Summary: “Kravitz,” the man says, eyes locked on his own fingers as they grip the edge of the window.Taako pauses in his descent. “What?”“If you… if you remember me, after this, remember the name Kravitz.”In a journey to save the world from a hungry doom cloud, sometimes you encounter distractions. Sometimes those distractions come in the form of a strange tower at the far edge of the kingdom, and the mysterious and handsome man who apparently lives inside.And sometimes, those distractions grow on you.





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> this was my project for taakitz week 2018, for the prompt “Sail away with me”! originally posted on tumblr. still not completely done but figured I’d start posting it here anyway, and hopefully by the time my backlog runs out I’ll be about finished lol. You can read the whole thing so far [here](https://theninthmember.tumblr.com/post/178610118912/forever-and-a-day-a-short-au-fic-ill-attempt-to).

“Sail away with me.”

The words cut through the air between them, bringing any other inane comments either of them might have made to an abrupt and wide-eyed halt.

Taako didn’t mean to say that. He meant to say something easy to brush off:  _I got nothing, my dude_ , or _You’d figure something out_. He meant to add one more brick to the wall he was painstakingly building between them. Instead he smashed it down with one sentence, with one thought. (The same thought that had been bouncing around in his head, insistent and interminable, for the past few hours. Longer, even.)

He fucked up, is what he did. He said something stupid and now he’s just standing here, practically _naked_ in front of Kravitz, in front of this man he barely even knows and soon won’t even have the opportunity to know at all. He fucked up _big time_.

The only way out of this, out of this vulnerable and absolutely moronic thing he’d just said, out of this piece of himself he’d just shoved in this stranger’s face, is to keep going. Make it _not_ stupid. Make it an actual outcome, that a normal person would choose, that _Kravitz_ would choose. Change Kravitz’s mind, which doesn’t sound hard but if there’s one thing Taako’s learned about Kravitz in the short time they’ve been acquainted (and he likes to think he’s learned a couple), it’s that it is _very_ hard to change his mind. A losing battle, a last-ditch effort with everything on the line.

But Taako, Taako who swindles people out of their shoes and cheats at cards and Taako who steals valuable treasures from tall towers and Taako who’s lost too much to give up now, might just have a shot at this. So he tears his eyes away from the horizon, forces them to Kravitz’s face (Kravitz’s dumbfounded and scarred and _beautiful_ face), and Taako, for once in his life, _tries_.

Oh, but this...

This is not where the story starts.


	2. ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there is... a tower

He stares at the kingdom as they approach, holding tightly to the bulwark because Magnus steers like he’s trying to pummel the ocean, and Taako doesn’t fancy another deep dive, especially not so close to shore.

The kingdom is right up against the coast. Looks wealthy as all get-out, classical architecture and paved streets and an enormous palace in the center made of white polished stone that glimmers in the setting sun. Probably marble. Rich fucks.

“What are you staring at?” he asks Lucretia, whose gaze is intently focused toward the northern end of the shore.

“The tower,” she says, pointing. Taako squints at it. 

The tower stands on a high hill, far removed from the rest of the kingdom. Tall, with an ornate spire resting at the top. From the rapidly decreasing distance he can make out a sort of balcony structure, facing towards the sea.

“Could be a lighthouse,” he says.

“No light.”

“Broken lighthouse?” 

He can almost hear her raise her eyebrows at him. “Look at the stone,” she says quietly.

The entire structure gleams in the fading sunlight, a polished shine to it that brings his brow to a furrow. He turns his gaze to the palace.

“Same material.”

“Same material,” she agrees.

“Something royal, then?” 

“Dunno,” she says. “Strange, though.” She shakes her head as if shaking off water, and hands him a stack of parchment. “Anyway. Here are the texts we were able to decipher.”

“Is Barry still working?” he asks, glancing over them and understanding none of it.

Lucretia responds with a short and sardonic laugh. “As if he ever does anything else.”

“Go and fetch him. We’re almost to shore.” She nods, and makes her way across the deck. “Make sure he brings The Light, too,” he calls after her.

“Yes, Captain.”

Barry climbs up from below deck just as they drop anchor. There are dark circles under his eyes, and a hard sort of determination deep set in his countenance. He’s carrying The Light in its jar, holding it close to his chest like one would a secret, or a small animal.

“Right,” Taako says. “Barry, you’re with me. Lucretia, you’re in charge while we’re gone.”

“Aw, what?” Magnus whines. “Captain, she always dares me to do gross stuff when she’s in charge.”

Lucretia scoffs. “Those are called chores, Magnus, and you’re actually supposed to do them anyway.”

“Licking the barnacles on the side of the boat is  _ not _ a chore!”

She shrugs.

Taako waves his hand loosely in Magnus’s direction, already walking away. “Yeah, don’t care. I trust her to not bring wild animals on board the ship.”

“That was  _ years _ ago!” Magnus shouts after Taako and Barry.

As they make their way to the docks, Taako finds his eyes drawn back to the tower. Lucretia is right, there’s definitely something odd about it. But they don’t have time to deal with it right now. Right now they need to get in, find Lucas Miller, figure out how the  _ fuck _ to save the world, and get out. There’s no room in the apocalypse for distractions, and Taako will sure as hell not let this tower become one of them.

Not a chance.


	3. iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tower boy?

“Taako, this is a bad idea,” Barry warns, staring up at the tower.

“Relax, we’re just scoping it out,” Taako replies.

“Really?” Barry says, raising his eyebrows. “Because you—you sorta look like you wanna climb it.”

“Oh no, I’m defo climbing it.” Taako steps forward to examine the stone. It’s all well built, but it’s old, the bricks starting to wear and chip around the edges. The space leaves just enough for handholds. Jeez, this thing is practically  _ begging _ to be stolen.

“T-Taako!” Barry sputters. “Lucas said this was valuable, don’t—don’t you think it’s weird that there aren’t any guards down here? What if it’s booby-trapped?”

“Yeah, but did you hear the part where he said  _ thousands of gold _ though? I feel like—I figure it’s kinda worth it probably.” He places a hand against the marble, letting it leech the warmth from his palm, as he scans upward, mentally planning his route. “Listen, I’m, uh—I’m not saying we  _ for sure  _ steal this thing the kingdom’s been making for however many fucking decades,” he says, digging his fingertips into the small crevice between two bricks. “But if—if I find it in here and accidentally take it, and forget to give it back until the king pays us a fucking  _ ton _ of money, well…” He begins to climb. 

“I gotta bad feeling about this, Taako,” Barry says.

“Well stuff it, for now. This is fine.”

The climb is easy, natch. He used to scale buildings all the time, back when he was doing petty two-person heists in Aldrania. Getting onto the balcony is more difficult; it wraps around the entire circumference, blocking any upward motion. But whoever built it severely underestimated Taako’s upper body strength. Carefully, he removes a hand from the wall and reaches out, feeling for a handhold on the wood above. His fingers brush against something cold and rusted—the metal framing holding the wood. Bingo. He brings his other hand up to wrap around it and kicks back from the wall. From there he makes his way backwards, hand over hand, until he reaches the outer edge, hoisting himself up over the railing. He takes a minute to catch his breath—he hasn’t done a stunt like that in a while.

This better be fucking worth it.

He gives a thumbs up to Barry, peeks in the window, and climbs through.

He doesn’t know what he was expecting. Maybe an empty room with a pedestal in the middle, the  _ chevie _ or whatever the fuck it’s called sitting on a nice satin pillow. Instead, he finds a bedroom. Like, an actual fucking _bedroom_ , at the top of the tower, with a little table and chair, and parchments covering the wall and a mirror and dresser and a bed—

And a man in the bed. 

Taako freezes. 

He’s sitting up, covers clutched to his chest, staring directly at him with wide eyes. “Wha—who—you’re not supposed to be up here,” the man sputters. He has a weird accent, one Taako’s never heard before. Lucas had an accent too, but it didn’t sound anything like the drawn out syllables and harsh consonants he’s getting from this guy.

“Uh… sorry, I, uh, got a little lost?” Taako says slowly. “You wouldn’t happen to know what room the  _chevie_ is kept in.”

“The… the _cjevei_?” the man says. The word comes from a weird place in his throat and sounds utterly impossible to repeat, honestly. Taako refuses to even try.

“Yeah, that,” he says. The man is silent for a long moment, and Taako can tell even in the dim light that he’s trying to think of ways to stall.

“Why?” he says finally.

Taako rolls his eyes. “Good question.” This is fine, he thinks. He’s always been good at lying. “The, uh… would you believe me if I said the king sent me?”

The man hesitates, and then shakes his head. Taako drums his fingers against his leg, giving a shaky laugh.

“‘Kay, uh, good, because that—that would have been a lie. But what I’m about to say now is  _ not _ a lie, so—so listen up. Why I’m really here is… I am… a… priest.”

The man stares at him. “A priest,” he repeats.

“Yep, a real live priest. My name is… Zach. And—and I’m here to check on the _che_ —the _cje_ —uh, the artifact, before the ceremony. Just to, y’know, make sure it’s all good and uh,  _ holy _ enough to give to the gods and whatnot.”

The man grabs the pillow sitting behind him and holds it in front of him like it’s a shield.

“Oh stars,” he says faintly. “You—you’re a pirate. You’re here to kidnap me. I—I  _ knew _ this would happen someday, of course this close to the solstice there’d be some kind of—some kind—oh stars—“ The guy seems on the verge of a literal panic attack, which is when Taako starts to think maybe this whole endeavor was a bad idea.

“Hey, uh, uh, I’m not gonna like… hurt you, my dude,” he says, trying for a calming tone. Hysteria does him absolutely no good right now, not when this guy is his only source for information. “Not even a pirate, really, I’m more of a boat thief. I mean—shit—not like—I don’t _steal_ _boats_ , I’m just—I’m a thief who has a boat. Boat thief.” He takes a step closer, putting out his hands placatingly. “Listen, uh… I think we can help each other out, yeah? You tell me where the… _choviegh_ is, and I’ll get right out of your hair.”

The man stops abruptly in the middle of his freakout, opening and closing his mouth a few times. “Tell—tell you where the…” He trails off.

“Yeah, I assume you know where it is. You’re what, like, a guard? Shit, do they—do they make you  _ live _ up here, bubeleh?” Taako glances around again. It’s a bedroom, sure, but it’s sparsely decorated aside from what look like star charts and maps hanging on the walls. There are also no exits aside from the one window. No stairs or ladders leading to the ground. Which sort of made sense when it was just a valuable and highly coveted artifact up here, but now that Taako knows there’s also a person? Kinda weird. Kinda fishy.

The man looks like he’s doing complicated arithmetic in his head. “Something like that,” he says slowly. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, moving as if he were swimming through honey. “I—uh… you don’t know where the  _ cjevei _ is?” he asks.

The question makes Taako stop in his tracks. He asked it lightly, but even an airy tone can’t disguise the implications of it. Not only does it confirm that the  _ chanvey _ is in the room, it implies that Taako has  _ missed  _ it, that he’s overlooked something vital. He glances around again, giving a second look to some of the jewelry on the dresser. He’d been imagining a bejeweled crown, or maybe a big silver orb (Lucas had said  _ something _ about it being silver, right?), but he realizes now that it could be absolutely anything, from that pearl necklace strung over the mirror to the fucking bed this guy is sitting on.

“I know it’s up here,” Taako says finally.

The man takes a deep breath, and then stands up and straightens his back. He’s very tall, taller than Taako expected. “They… they  _ usually _ keep the  _ cjevei _ in this tower,” he says, tone even, “but they move it to the palace this close to the festival. As a precaution.”

His left eye twitches.

Taako sighs, unimpressed. “Well, that was a lie if I ever heard one.” Before the other man can blink he’s unsheathed his cutlass and tapped the point of it to his chest. “Wanna try again?”

The man clenches his jaw, raw fear dancing across what he probably thinks is a pretty good poker face. “You—you can’t kill me,” he says, though the crease in his brow and the downward twitch of his lips tell Taako that maybe he doesn’t fully believe that.

“Why not?” he asks.

They meet eyes. The man seems to be looking for something in his gaze, something that Taako is determined he can’t find.

“You—you said. That you wouldn’t.”

Taako blinks once. Twice.

“That’s…  _ that’s _ your reason?” he says, trying to sound mocking but worried it comes across as more stunned. The man nods, jaw set and eyes strangely sincere. Taako sputters out a laugh. “You—I’m—I’m not a fucking fae, _idiot_ , you think I—you think I’m fucking bound to my word? You think—’Oh he just—he has a sword, but he promised, so’—dude? Hey bud? I could stab you.”

“You could,” the man agrees, voice steady, but the hard swallow punctuating the sentence does little to enforce the whole cool-and-confident thing he seems to be going for.

Taako lowers his sword a bit. He doesn’t like the way this guy is looking at him, like he knows anything at all about his character, about his life. Like he knows him enough to take him on his fucking word, like some kind of… some kind of moron. Maybe Taako  _ should _ just straight up stab him, just to prove him wrong.

He takes a step back.

“This… y’know what? This isn’t worth the trouble,” he snaps. And it’s _not_. This guy has the upper hand and he  _ knows _ it, and Taako sure as hell isn’t going to get anything out of someone willing to clam up at fucking swordpoint.

And that, and no other reason, is why Taako puts away his sword. Why he backs toward the window. Why he ducks out onto the balcony. 

He looks back, once, before swinging from the railing. The man is still staring at him, eyes glinting with reflected moonlight. Taako flips him off.

“So… booby-trapped?” Barry asks when he reaches the bottom, no artifact in hand. Taako crosses his arms.

“No. Yes. Whatever. Let’s get out of here.”

Barry knows well enough not to press any further, and in stewing silence they wind their way around the outskirts of the kingdom and back toward the Pire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if, for some reason, you’ve read this on tumblr and are re-reading it here, you’ll notice I’ve been doing some revisions, which is especially clear on this chapter. these are just for my own sanity, as I had to re-read all this to format it and stuff, so I thought I might as well do some fixes.


	4. iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> breakfast

“So did Lucas tell you anything important? When you gave it to him?” Lucretia asks the next morning over breakfast. (The best oatmeal any of these fools will ever eat, or maybe the eleventh best, because that’s how many times Taako has made it since they set sail from Felicity’s harbor. The food is his only regret about life at sea, is what he says when he’s joking.) “You were gone a long time.”

“Nope,” Barry replies, popping the P. “He just said he wanted to examine the texts, and we should check in tomorrow. We were gone a long time because Taako took a detour on the way home.”

“A detour?” she repeats, looking between them.

“Can we just—can we fucking eat breakfast in peace?” Taako grumbles into his spoon. Barry doesn’t pay him any heed.

“Yeah, Lucas mentioned some religious artifact they keep in that big tower outside the kingdom, and Taako wanted to see if he could steal it.”

“Why?” Magnus asks, cocking his head like a confused puppy. “We’re good on supplies, right?”

Taako groans, dropping his spoon. “Yeah, we are, but _listen_. Barry has—has conveniently neglected to tell you how much it was worth. Which is a fucking _lot_. Like, Ivan’s Crown levels of wealth we’re talking.”

Magnus and Lucretia both freeze, skeptical comments drying up on their tongues. Greedy little shits.

“Did you get it?” Lucretia asks after a moment.

Taako pauses, and then shakes his head. Both of their faces fall. “Nah. There was—it was empty up there. No  _ chidi  _ or whatever in sight.”

“ _Cjevei_ ,” Barry mumbles.

“What was the plan here?” Lucretia asks. “Fence it?”

“The plan was ransom,” Taako says. “Which—don’t make that face, it would have fucking worked. Barry, tell them the—the thing Lucas was saying.”

“Oh, uh, there’s—Lucas told us about, um—apparently they have this ceremony about every thirty years, where they throw this thing, the  _ cjevei,  _ off of a cliff on the southern shore, into—L-Lucas called it The Deep? It sounded like some kind of underwater cavern.” He pushes his glasses up from where they were slipping off of his nose. “It’s pretty interesting, actually, they’ve apparently been doing this for centuries, as a—a sort of tribute to their gods, so you’d expect their pantheon to value, like, hard work, or wealth, or protection, or something to do with crafting this thing for three decades and keeping it hidden away in a tower, but none of them _are_. From what Lucas was saying, most of their gods seem to be more about academic pursuits than wealth. Like, they have a god of language, math, acquiring new knowledge, truth and purity from falsehoods, but none that would seem to value something like—“

“Barry.”

He pauses, looking up. “Oh. Right, sorry. The—the point is, the ceremony is this year.”

“ _Tomorrow_ of this year,” Taako cuts in.

“Yeah, I was gonna get to that. Anyway, the royals probably would have paid a fortune to get it back in time for the ritual.” He frowns. “I mean, y’know, if we’d actually gotten it.”

Taako scoffs. “You sound pretty disappointed for someone who was whining about this plan so much last night.”

“Well, I mean…” he says, idly stirring his oatmeal. “It probably should have been a four person job, and you tried to pull it off by yourself.”

“I was scoping it out!” Taako insists. “Plus, you—it’s not like any of you could have come.” Taako points across the table. “You two suck at climbing,” he says, before wielding his finger at Magnus, “and  _ your _ big dumb sausage fingers wouldn’t have fit in the handholds.”

“Rope,” Lucretia says under her breath. Magnus snorts loudly.

“This is insubordination,” Taako complains. “The point is, there was nothing up there, nada, zilch, so the plan was a lost cause anyway.” He doesn’t mention the man. They’d just ask a bunch of questions, and he hasn’t finished mulling the whole thing over in his head. He still thinks it’s _weird_ , that they’d make someone live up there with only a ceremonial sacrifice for company.

“So Lucas was lying?” Magnus asks.

“I guess. I dunno.” 

“I don’t trust him,” Barry says suddenly, glaring at his bowl like it had done something unspeakable.

Taako blinks. “Wh—Lucas? Where is this coming from? You talked with him for almost half an hour straight about the fucking pantheon.”

“I dunno, he—he seemed shady, though.” Then he shrugs, and says, almost too quietly to hear, “And I don’t like how he was looking at The Light.”

Taako glances at Lucretia and Magnus, who look back at him with thinly veiled concern. Barry had grown… possessive of The Light, ever since Phandalin.

“We’ll check in with him tonight,” Taako says quickly. “Make sure he’s not doing anything weird with that weird bright dog of ours.” Barry doesn’t respond. “ _Anyway_ ,” Taako continues, trying to draw him back into conversation, “back to the  _ chovey, _ or whatever. He said it was silver, right? I’m not making that up?”

Barry looks up, thoroughly distracted. “The  _ cjevei _ ? I think—didn’t he say  _ adorned _ in silver?”

“Adorned in silver,” Taako parrots, pretending to contemplate it. Adorned in…

A sudden thought enters his mind.

“Yeah,” Barry says. “Yeah, no, it was adorned, definitely.” Taako barely hears him, because now that one thought has divided itself into separate details about last night, all of them swirling together in a weird idea soup. “So… so I’m thinking it’s not made entirely out of silver, but they attach something decorative to it…”

“Hey, I gotta check on something real quick,” Taako says, standing abruptly from his chair.

“Taako?” Lucretia says.

“I’ll be back s—uh—I’ll be quick about it, promise, I just—I remembered something on shore I kinda wanted to get, so, uh…” 

They all exchange one of their looks, one of those  _ Taako’s not a very good captain _ looks, but Taako doesn’t even have time to be bitter about it as he scrambles up to the deck. He spins in a full circle before his eyes lock on the tower.

He thinks of the room, with no stairs or doors. With a bed and a chair and a mirror but no artifact in sight. He thinks of the man, his strange accent and his assumption that Taako would kidnap him and his willingness to lie to protect the _chenvie_. He thinks of the weirdly vague language Lucas had used when talking about the ritual—specifically, he thinks of the word adorned, which is… which is a  _ people _ word.

He thinks of all of this at once, boots clicking hollowly on the wooden dock as he makes his way to the road. He doesn’t take his eyes off of the tower for a second.

Taako has questions.


	5. v

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tower boy is sarcastic now

“It was you,” Taako says accusingly as he climbs through the window. 

The man spins around from where he was looking at himself in the mirror, and Taako pauses for a moment, slightly stunned as he finally gets a good look at the guy in full daylight. Dark skin and long, thin braids framing his face. High cheekbones and full lips and wide eyes trained on him. He’s dressed in lavender silk that drapes around his torso before flowing loosely toward the ground. Around his neck hangs a black shimmering pendant, and his left cheek is smeared with silver paint. 

He’s quite possibly the hottest guy Taako has ever seen. But before Taako has time to appreciate any of this properly, the man flinches back into the mirror, and time moves forward again.

“Y—stay away from me!” the man says.

Right, this is  _ not _ the time to have a gay crisis. He can’t let himself be distracted from his purpose for coming here in the first place. Taako shakes his head, taking a step farther into the room. “Don’t even try to lie, my man, I figured it out! You’re the _chimney_ , aren’t you!”

“Wh—no, of course n—I’m—that’s—“ He cuts off with a frown as he seems to process what Taako said. “ _Chimney_? Really?” he says after a moment, looking affronted. “Honestly, it’s almost _rude_ , at this point.”

“So you admit it?” Taako says.

“N-no,” he answers hesitantly, his voice traversing an entire octave. His eye twitches and he breaks off, shoulders slumping. “Please don’t take me,” he says in a rush, eyes flitting about the room. “If—if it’s money you’re after, I have valuables up here, you can have them—“

“First—first of all, yes, of  _ course _ I will take your valuables, a-thank you,” Taako says, a lazy grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Too easy. “But uh, I’m not gonna  _ take _ you, or whatever. Taako don’t roll like that.”

Plus, he’d  _ never _ be able to get a guy with this much height on him all the way to the docks unwillingly, especially without someone taking notice. Taako’s stronger than he looks, sure, but he’s far from the crew’s brawn.

Although, if he could convince to come _willingly_ … Taako takes a deep breath. “Listen, I don’t really even know why I’m up here, if we’re being honest,” he says. ”Like, you kinda hoodwinked me earlier, so I sorta I wanted some closure, and I guess it would’ve been weird, like,  _ storywise _ if I never came back, but mostly—mostly I’m just so fucking bored. So are you, judging by the face paint—“

The man’s hand flies to his face, and his brow furrows. “These markings are _sacred_ —“

“—so _listen_ , I’ve got a proposal for you!” 

The man quiets, staring at him warily, and Taako grins. “Okay, my guy, my—what did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t,” the man says, eyes moving to the floor. He pauses, obviously expecting Taako to move on. Taako does not move on, and the silence stretches out for what feels like a lifetime before the man shifts, looking uncomfortable.  “I don’t exactly… have one?”

“You don’t have a _name_?” Taako blanches.

“N-no, I don’t—someone in my position doesn’t, um—doesn’t generally require a name to fulfill their duty, so…”

“Right, yeah, keep forgetting you’re a tower man. I’ll just—can I call you Mark?” The man glares. “I won’t call you Mark. Just—listen, here it is: You come with me back to my ship. I collect ransom money from the king. We sail you over to the next town, pro bono! We get some cash, you avoid, uh, uh, imminent death… You could  _ even _ have a share of the loot.” He sticks out his hand. “Whaddya say?”

The man’s frown seems to have found permanent residence on his face, as he stares down at Taako’s outstretched hand with what could only be described as disdain. “I… Zach, was it?” he says.

Taako lowers his hand. “Was what?”

“Was—you?”

“Oh, uh, my name is Taako, actually.” It’s funny, Taako thinks that if you slowed down time as he said that, you would be able to pinpoint the exact moment the man lost all faith in the world.

“Right,” he says after a long moment. “Right, yes, of course it is, why—“ He shakes his head. “Taako, it’s been—well, not nice, it’s been decidedly  _ not _ nice speaking to you, and that’s a… a kind offer that I’m sure you’re making solely out of the goodness of your heart”—ah, tower boy is  _ sarcastic _ now, that’s rich—“but you should know that I take my duty to this kingdom very seriously. I would never abandon it for the sake of… of _wanderlust_. Plus, your plan’s rubbish.”

“That’s a little rude, Mr. Manners,” Taako says with a scoff.

“Well, it—it just is! The king’s legion stretches across all the Eastern Ward, and he has allies all over the globe.”

“Globe?” Taako says.

The man rolls his eyes. “The—y’know, the world? The place you live? Lots of water—“

“Yes, I know what the world is,” Taako snaps. “But doesn’t globe mean, like… circle?”

The man squints, like he thinks Taako’s playing some weird prank on him. “Yes,” he says slowly. “Yes, globe refers to objects that are spherical. Such as the world.”

Taako squints right back.

“The world,” the man says again, as if he’s speaking to an infant, “which is round?”

Taako jaw falls open. “It’s _what_?!” he shrieks. “What—what does that even mean?”

The man looks utterly unimpressed. “Oh stars, you’re—you’re having a bit of trouble with this one, huh?” he says mockingly. “What, thought there was—thought there was an edge, did you?”

“N—hey—you have a lot of gall, to come at me with that and then act like I’m the crazy one!” Taako crosses his arms. “Have you ever even seen a map? That shit’s not round!”

“That’s—that’s because  _ parchment _ is flat, not the world! This—” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You know what? I can’t do this right now, I’m very busy. The point is, I can’t leave, because they would find me. And I don’t want to, in the first place.”

Taako shakes his head, still reeling, but trying to return to the matter at hand. “Listen, we—we can work with that. That’s, uh—that’s actually easier for us. If you’re really set on this whole  _ being thrown in the ocean _ shtick, we could just, y’know—get the money and return you. This can still be mutually beneficial. Have you ever been on a ship? Bet you haven’t. They’re  _ really _ cool.”

The man is already shaking his head. “No, no thank you, I—look, you need to leave. Sorry I can’t get you rich, but I’m—I have a duty to fulfill to my kingdom, and that requires that I do not allow myself to be stolen like I’m a—a _pocket watch_.” He advances a step, forcing Taako to take a step back. “I have never set foot outside of this tower,” he says firmly, “and I have no desire to until the solstice tomorrow.”

Taako raises his eyebrows. “Never?” he says. He’s stalling, now; his persuasion check is obviously bust, and he doesn’t have a backup plan. The guy simply isn’t intimidated by him.

“Never,” the man answers. He points behind Taako. “Exit’s over there.”

Taako puts his hands up, backing away towards the window. There’s a string of pearls hanging off of the dresser, and Taako tucks it into his pocket as he passes, eyeing the man to see if he reacts. He doesn’t. 

Taako’s about to step out the window, when his eyes catch on the assortment of parchment on the walls. “You have a lot of maps,” he says, eyebrows raised.

The man freezes, glancing at his walls as if he’d forgotten they were there. “I… yes, I used to, uh… I used to be interested in that sort of thing. I’m not anymore,” he adds at the end, voice rushed.

He doesn’t say anything more, and Taako doesn’t push. What would be the point? He’s already lost. He supposes he could keep trying, come at it from another angle, but Taako’s never been a fan of losing battles. If he can’t get rich overnight, at least he got a pretty sweet necklace out of it. And at least he did  _ something _ right—he knows what the  _ chesney _ is, now, and that’s more than he could say this morning. He lost, but there’s something to be said for consolation prizes. 

Taako can be satisfied with that, if he needs to be.

He climbs over the railing of the balcony, about to drop down, when he’s stopped by the man’s voice. “Kravitz,” he says, eyes locked on his own fingers as they grip the edge of the window.

“What?”

“If you… if you remember me, after this, remember the name Kravitz.”

Taako smiles. Maybe it’s a draw, then.

“Kravitz,” he repeats, and the name feels nice on his tongue, all the sweeter knowing he’ll forget it in a day. “I like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, hitting the post button: _god_ I hope I made him bastard enough


	6. vi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes there’s nothing to say.

“Yo, Lucretia, wanna check out an underwater cavern?” Taako asks, sticking his head into her room. He’d been trying to sleep, but with the sounds of Barry’s pacing bleeding through the walls, combined with the steady thump of Magnus brutalizing their training dummy up on deck, he couldn’t get a wink. He’d never been claustrophobic, but on days like this, the Pire seems impossibly cramped.

Lucretia hesitates, looking up from her desk. “I need to write,” she says, voice wavering. Her notebook is blank, and Taako knows she can feel the walls closing in, same as him.

“You can write when we get back. C’mon, I really wanna check out The Deep.”

Lucretia sighs and sets down her pen, nib pointedly dry. “Yeah, okay. Maybe a break will do me some good.”

They tell Magnus where they’re going and make their way into town. Taako’s been eyeing the south edge ever since this morning. Outside the bounds of the kingdom, just after the last of the houses taper off, the grass covered hills end abruptly in a steep cliffside. Barry had said that’s where the  _ chievee _ is thrown into the sea. Taako wants to see it, not for any particular reason, just because… he’s curious.

“Did something happen, after I left?” he asks as they make their way along the back roads. “I popped in on Barry and the energy in there is… very bad.” 

“Nothing big,” Lucretia says. “Just the usual stuff. Said he wasn’t hungry and locked himself in his study. And then Magnus felt bad, so he went above deck to be loud, and then I couldn’t write…” She sighs.

“So what you’re saying is I’m the glue that holds this team together, right, already knew that,” Taako says flippantly.

“No, Taako,” says Lucretia, voice firm. “I’m saying you need to talk to him, at some point. It’s been months. He’s not moving past this, he’s… he’s obsessed. He thinks defeating The Hunger will bring her back. Will bring  _ everything _ back.”

“We don’t know it won’t.”

Lucretia’s head snaps toward him, a type of concern lining her face that Taako is sick of. “Taako, you don’t think—”

“No, of course not, I’m not fucking stupid.” 

She’s quiet a moment. “Neither is Barry.”

The cobblestone turns to dirt under their feet, and the convoluted architectural wonders fade behind them, as they enter a section of simple one-story houses. Two children run past them, both holding sticks, giggling as one pokes the other in the back. Taako watches as they run off the road, into a patch of long grass, where they disappear but for their shrieks of laughter. He wishes he could remember the last time seeing a child hadn’t filled him with dread, with the knowledge that at any second all of this could be wiped away, ankle-biters included. He shakes his head.

Lucretia has gone very quiet, and Taako finds himself fishing for conversation as the road fades into a narrow path, and the space between the houses grows.

“So, I learned that the  _ chevron _ is a dude,” he says, staring straight ahead at the steep hill they’re approaching.

“I thought it was called the _cjevei_ ,” Lucretia replies absently.

“God, fuck, everyone’s really hung up on that, huh? Well, Ms. Nerd, if you must know, it’s actually called Kravitz, because that’s the name he made up for himself.”

She squints into the distance, her stride faltering. “I don’t follow,” she says. “I thought you didn’t find anything last night?”

“Well, no, I said I didn’t find the _cherry_. But, uh, I did, but I didn’t know it was the _cherry_ —“

“Are you doing this as a goof now?”

“—I sort of just thought he was like, guarding it or something. But there was a dude, just sort of living in the tower, and it turns out  _ he’s  _ what I was looking for.”

“So… so wait.” Taako walks a few more steps before realizing Lucretia’s stopped in her tracks. “So all the stuff Barry was saying about the… the ritual… they do that to a person?”

“Yeah.” Taako shrugs. “His name’s Kravitz.”

They reach the hill, the last obstacle before the cliffside, and the path winds around the side. But Taako wants a view, and the side looks, from here, an even steeper climb. He shrugs and begins to scale the rocks in front of him.

Lucretia doesn’t move. “That’s… that's terrible,” she says.

“I guess,” he says with a grunt as he pulls himself up onto a narrow shelf.

“Taako, at—at least  _ pretend _ to care, this is someone’s life we’re talking about!”

“Don’t pretend to be my moral conscience all of a sudden,” he says, and Lucretia winces at the snarl badly hidden underneath his airy tone. Taako almost feels bad. He sighs, reaching out his hand to help her up. “He’s… He’s a willing participant in this, he made that clear.”

“Because they—they’ve brainwashed him, Taako,” she argues as he pulls her up. “Culture is taught, religion is taught, if—if he’s been told he has to die all his life, of course he’ll think it’s true!” 

Taako turns away, scrabbling for a handhold in the last large rock.

“Listen, Lucretia,” he says, pulling himself up and rolling over the edge. “If he believes he’s gotta die it’s not my job to convince him otherwise. That’s not on us.” After lying on his back a moment, catching his breath, he pulls her up.

“I’m not saying it’s on us, I’m saying…” She crosses her arms, breathing heavily. “It’s sad,” she finishes lamely. “Tragic.”

Taako considers. “Yeah,” he says as they crest the hill. “It is that.”

The Deep looks like a giant blue hole in the sea floor. A tunnel leading to the center of the earth. Taako supposes, looking at it, that it does have a sort of divine feeling to it. A certain power. Like it could swallow you up and never spit you back out. He looks to his right. “Aw fuck,” he mutters. Lucretia, beside him, groans a little, running a hand through her hair. Built into the hillside, just out of view of where they’d climbed, was a set of stone stairs.

He sits with his legs hanging off the edge of the cliff; it’s been months since Phandalin, and he's long since given up on the devout self-preservation he’d made a habit in childhood. Lucretia sits beside him, a little behind, legs tucked neatly underneath her.

“What do you think will happen?” she says quietly, staring over his shoulder into the water.

“To Kravitz?” Taako asks, frowning.

“No, t—to us.”

Taako doesn’t look at her. “We’ll be fine,” he says. “We’re always fine.”

“No we’re not.”

Taako glances at her, as she stares out at the horizon. “Nah, but we’re fine most of the time,” he says, trying to find a smile. “A good sixty, seventy percent.”

Lucretia snorts. “Yes, I suppose we’re about seventy percent fine.”

They stay silent for a long time after that, and beneath them, the waves churn against the rocks in a rhythm Taako thinks in the back of his mind sounds oddly ominous. There’s a foreboding chill in the air, a sharp breeze coming from the sea that smells faintly of sulfur.

Lucretia takes a breath like she’s about to be submerged, and Taako knows what she’s going to say before the words leave her lips.

“What do you think Lup would—“

“Don’t finish that sentence,” he says. Not with any malice, only a heavy sigh. A pervading exhaustion at the idea of stirring up old thoughts. 

Lucretia nods, probably expecting that answer in the first place.

They both know Lucretia should be captain, the whole damn crew knows Lucretia should be captain. It’s a simple fact, as true as it is unspoken. Lucretia is smart, and quick thinking, and unlike Taako she _cares_ ; she puts her crew first and she’s able to make tough calls and regret them in a way Taako can’t bring himself to. A leader not born, but risen—risen from the ashes of the gone and risen to the call of people who need her and risen above the punishing force of the waves that would drag her down at the slightest misstep.

Taako has been drowning a long time, even before Phandalin, gasping and clawing for the breath he needed, taking it greedily when he found it but never quite able to get to the source. It shows, not all the time, but enough. When he tries to pull a heist without any help; when he runs off on his own without alerting the others; when he doesn’t have the words to reach anyone he’s supposed to inspire.

Lup probably didn’t even consider the possibility of Taako being in charge, when she made him first mate. Taako was who she could trust without the slightest doubt, who she needed by her side more than any of the rest of the crew. And he’d been great at it; he’d completed her in a way no one else ever could. He argued with her, called her out on her bullshit when the others were too afraid of sounding insubordinate. He picked at flaws in her plans before she brought them before the crew, brought an edge of practicality to her idealism. Taako and Lup were a team, she’d just made it official. Becoming substitute captain was an unforeseen consequence. A simple oversight born from an unspoken assumption of safety—functioning in her absence was not a responsibility any of them knew they’d have to face.

The thing is, he knows they’ll follow him anyway. His crew will follow him to the ends of the earth or until he screws up so bad that they all die, and they’ll do it well. He’s not a leader and Lucretia is but everyone will follow him anyway because they trust him, and they trusted Lup, and they trusted Dav, and that trust has never steered them wrong. That’s what makes his stomach turn the most; the idea that he’ll be the one to break that chain.

“I’d love to meet Kravitz,” Lucretia says suddenly. “Maybe I could write down his story.”

Taako almost says no, the idea seeming, for a moment, unfathomable. As if talking to Kravitz is a right that belongs exclusively to him. He catches himself at the last minute. “You could try,” he says. “He’s not a fan of visitors.”

“Well, maybe if we—” She cuts off abruptly, interrupting herself with an urgent, “ _Taako._ ” 

Taako tears his eyes away from the water below to look at her. She’s staring wide-eyed at the horizon, and Taako knows, before he looks. Dread pools in his stomach as he becomes newly aware of the cold breeze, the sulfur scent, the sinister look in the waves. He knows before he looks that the clouds forming on the horizon, the ones he should have noticed earlier, have gathered together in an amorphous swirl of darkness encroaching the horizon. 

“Fuck,” he says, because he _knows_.

The Hunger is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: the technical term for an underwater sinkhole is, for real, just "blue hole," which I think is beyond dumb. Anyway [here's what The Deep looks like.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_hole)


	7. vii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the gang bullies lucas

How could he have been so stupid? Taako shouldn’t have let them stop for so long in Felicity; he gave The Hunger all the time it needed to catch up with them. _Again_. 

He sprints as fast as he can back the way they came, with Lucretia close on his heels. It might not be too late. If they can get The Light and get out of here in the next hour, they might be able to divert The Hunger’s course. Maybe they can still save this place.

Taako bounds up the steps of Lucas’s house, not pausing to catch his breath. He pounds on the door incessantly and doesn’t stop until it swings open, bringing him face to face with Lucas himself.

“What the hell do you—oh, it’s you.” The realization doesn’t seem to mollify him; if anything, he only looks more irritated.

Taako puts on his most charming smile. “Sorry to stop by unannounced,” he says, holding out his hands, palm up, “but we need The Light back, pronto.”

Lucas’s eyes narrow, almost imperceptibly, and Taako sees something in him then that he hadn't the night before. Maybe Barry was onto something—suddenly this man doesn’t strike Taako as the ‘honorable’ type.

Lucas takes a small step forward, filling the space of the doorway as if he thinks he could physically block them from entering.

“I can’t give it to you yet,” he says, eyes flicking between the two of them. “I was told I would be given time to conduct a full scientific study and—and I haven’t completed my research. If you stop by tomorrow I can—“

“No, see, that doesn’t really work out with our current schedule.” Taako turns to Lucretia. “I’m thinking we just go in and grab it real fast, what do you think?”

“Sounds great to me, Captain,” she says with a shrug.

Lucas sputters. “You—you can’t come into my home, there are _laws_ —“ 

Taako laughs. “My man, look at—take  _ one _ look at our—at the sort of brand we’ve got going and  _ tell me _ we care about laws.”

He drums his fingers against the hilt of his cutlass and watches Lucas go pale, mouth pressing into a thin line.

“You wanna show us where it is,” Taako asks, “or do we gotta tear your house apart?”

Lucas doesn’t speak, which Taako takes as an answer. He nudges him out of the way and steps into the house. Lucretia follows. There are doors on either side of the entry hall. Wordlessly, they split up, Lucretia taking left and Taako right. 

Taako finds himself in the parlor where Lucas had sat them down last night. Taako doesn’t find The Light, or anything else useful, but he does find a silverware drawer in the back. Shiny. Maybe real silver. 

Unbidden, the image of Lucas eating soup with a fork enters Taako’s mind. 

“Oh yes,” he says quietly. Without missing a beat, he scoops all of the spoons out of the drawer and stuffs them into one of his coat pockets, grinning like a mad man.

“Taako!” Lucretia shouts from across the hall. “It’s in here.”

Taako pats his spoon pocket to make sure they’re secure, and then crosses the hall into the opposite room.

Lucretia’s standing at the back wall, holding The Light in her hand. Taako barely glances at her, because _yikes_. Lucas’s study looks like a monsoon hit. There are books jammed onto shelves, some looking on the verge of falling to the floor. Papers are strewn about the desks on the left side, on the floor, pinned to the walls, just about everywhere. 

Taako sighs. He always gets the boring rooms. He does a quick scan of the desk and picks out everything that looks important. There are the texts he and Lucretia translated, but there are also some pages ripped out of a book written in what looks like barrinesh, weird looking diagrams, and some hastily scribbled notes that say things like _need fourth sleeve current regulator,_ and _THOUGHT-PATTERN ALTERATION!_ and _celestial???_ Taako folds them all up and tucks them in another pocket.

He turns to the bookshelf. “You think Barry would want any of these?” he asks, glancing at some of the titles.

“Taako,” Lucretia says, voice urgent. “Bigger issues.”

“Issues?” Taako turns to look at her. She is not, as he originally assumed, holding The Light. She’s holding a wrench.

“Issues.” Lucretia gestures behind her, and Taako pauses for a moment to take it in.

“Oh,” he says.

It takes up the entire back wall, a metal monstrosity made of pipes and dials and levers, and it looks, one might say, pretty damn sinister.

As he approaches the contraption, he sees what in particular Lucretia is staring at: a small compartment at the heart of the machine, containing a single glass jar. Inside is The Light, blinking wildly and throwing itself against the glass on all sides in a futile attempt to free itself.

“Barry was right,” Lucretia says. “What  _ is _ this?”

“Can’t say I’m a huge fan of finding out.” Taako unclips the wires attached to the lid of the jar, which dangle uselessly as he goes about finding a way to release the jar from the metal band securing it in place. 

Wordlessly, he takes the wrench from Lucretia.

“Taako, I already tried, the bolts aren’t the right si—“

She cuts off as he brings the wrench down hard, bashing into the side of the band with a loud  _ clang! _

“Huh,” says Lucretia. “That works.”

“Hell yeah it does.”

Taako repeats the precise and delicate process on the opposite side of the band, until it looks more like a deformed worm than a worthy barrier.

He tosses the wrench behind him and wraps his hands around the jar. It’s warm, and his fingers hum with that familiar energy radiating through the glass. Taako breathes out, and  _ yanks _ as hard as he can. There’s a creaking sound, the misaligned band straining against him, before it gives out all at once. Taako stumbles back a step, the jar safe in hand. 

The Light remains frantic, rattling the glass and coming close to knocking it out of Taako’s grasp. It wants out. Taako puts his hand on the lid—

“Captain,” Lucretia says, wrapping her fingers around his wrist. “It’s doing the thing.”

Taako blinks as he comes back to his senses. He glares at The Light.

“Oh hell no, I am not letting you out again,” he tells it. It had taken hours to catch the last time, and that had been at sea, where there was no where for it to run. The Light flashes despairingly at him, and continues to throw itself against the walls of its glass prison. Taako smiles, shaking his head. When had he gotten  _ fond _ of this creepy little ball of spirit magic?

He thinks of Barry, explaining the concept of pack bonding to him like he was five, like he’d never picked up a psychology textbook. _It’s not a fucking dog_ , Taako had said. Barry had just shrugged.

That makes him think of Barry. Taako considers again taking a few books back to him. They do have an entire library free for the taking, after all, and it would give him something to do, instead of pacing through the study and thinking about every mistake they’ve made in the past year. Hell, maybe Taako could skim through one, too. Been a while since he hit the books. He opens his mouth to ask Lucretia about it—

A floorboard behind them creaks.

From the moment the sound reaches him, Taako has about one second to assess the threat. Person, maybe two feet behind. Most valuable object in room: in Taako’s hands. Person in most danger: Taako. Good, no need to warn Lucretia. Cutlass in belt, dagger in boot, hands full of jar. Bad. No time to arm himself. No risky maneuvers—if the glass breaks this is pointless. No other options. Duck right and hope for the best.

The universe grants him this small victory: as Lucas brings the wrench down, it hits empty air instead of Taako’s skull. Lucretia leaps back with a yelp, drawing her weapon. Taako spins around. Lucas, already off balance from the momentum of his strike, stumbles backward as Taako’s foot catches him in the chest. Lucretia sidesteps him and delivers a quick blow to his stomach with the pommel of her sword. The wrench lands with a clang on the floorboards as he falls, unceremoniously, to the ground.

Lucretia touches the point of her sword to the base of his neck. “What is this?” she demands, gesturing to the machine with her other hand. Lucas’s eyes flash defiantly.

“You wouldn’t—you can’t understand!”

Lucretia tenses her hand, moving her weapon just enough for the pressure on his neck to become a source of panic. “Try me,” she growls. Lucas sucks in a breath, ever so careful of his movements.

“It’s—it’s a… converter,” he says. “An energy converter.” Taako watches the sweat bead on his forehead. “It’s—you don’t even know what you’re dealing with here, this specimen is a source of nearly infinite power, do you get what that could mean for this kingdom?”

“Honestly?” Taako says, staring absently at The Light. “From—from what I’ve seen of this kingdom, helping it is not high on my fucking list, my man.”

Lucas clenches his fists, eyes desperate. “I—I could give you a cut. I’ve almost gotten it to work, this will make a fortune!”

Taako considers this. He glances at Lucretia. She gives him an unimpressed look and shakes her head.

“Eh,” he says finally. “I recently came into possession of a mildly expensive necklace, so… we’re kind of super good on money right now. We, uh—we do need to be going, though, so…” 

Lucretia nods, putting away her sword and backing away. Taako follows her lead.

“When that thing takes a host you’ll wish you’d listened to me!” Lucas blurts. Taako and Lucretia pause halfway to the door. When he sees he’s caught their attention, Lucas sits up straighter. “You really don’t know what this thing is capable of, do you?” he says, a smile growing on his face. “You have no idea. But I do. If you just let me finish running the tests, I’ll tell you whatever you want to—”

“Not interested,” Taako says. The Light is shaking violently in his hands. They can find someone else who knows the answers. There has to be someone else, somewhere. Whatever Lucas was doing to their only hope of salvation to get it so riled up  _ can’t _ be worth it. “After you,” he says to Lucretia, gesturing with his free hand to the door.

As Taako moves to follow her, Lucas springs to his feet and charges with all the form and precision of a cat treading water. Taako holds back a sigh. He pretends not to notice until the last second, when he shifts his weight to his left foot and ducks, quick as he can, out of Lucas’s path. He keeps his hand steady on the jar while he swings his leg out into Lucas’s stumbling feet. 

Lucas emits a shrill squeak as he pitches forward, head knocking into the doorframe, and then he slumps to the floor, unmoving. Taako grins, hopping to his feet.

He dusts himself off theatrically, heading for the door.

Except, Lucas’s hand—

It darts out, too quick for Taako to react. It catches his ankle, and the world tilts forward. Taako yelps, hands thrust in front of him. The Light—he tries to twist, somehow position himself in a way that will spare the jar from the impact, but at that moment, The Light slams into the glass, and it slips from Taako’s fingers.

He hits the ground and barely registers the pain. His eyes are on the jar. It slams into the wooden floorboards, and Taako watches, helplessly, as it shatters. The sound pierces his ears. His face stings slightly. _From the glass_ , Taako thinks distantly.

A flash of white light, a wave of energy that sends a shiver up his spine. That’s all it takes.

The Light is free, and it’s out the door before anyone can so much as blink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back? With a continuation of a multi-chapter fic? That I’ve actually edited? That took me more than 20 minutes to write? Oh god, it’s like I’m some sort of... writer.
> 
> Jokes aside I’m really happy to be posting this! school has been kicking my ass in a major way and it’s really gratifying to actually finish revising this chapter after all these months.
> 
> Leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed! It was only through reading old comments that I was able to work up the willpower to work on this <33 Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed! here’s my [tumblr](https://theninthmember.tumblr.com).


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